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LAST UPDATE | 16 Jun
ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER Benjamin Netanyahu has suggested that assassinating Iran’s supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei would “end the conflict” between the two nations.
“It’s not going to escalate the conflict, it’s going to end the conflict,” Netanyahu told ABC News in an interview when asked about reports that US President Donald Trump vetoed an Israeli plan to kill the supreme leader out of concern it would intensify the Iran-Israel showdown.
Netanyahu claimed that Israel was “standing up to the forces of evil” by extending its war-footing to Iran.
His comments came after the Israeli military carried out a fresh bombing of Iranian capital Tehran as a rapidly escalating air war between Iran and Israel raged for the fourth consecutive day.
The IDF had earlier warned residents of a northern district of Tehran to evacuate “immediately”, saying it intended to carry out air strikes there.
“In the coming hours, the Israeli army will operate in the area, as it has in recent days throughout Tehran, to strike military infrastructure of the Iranian regime”, the military said in a post on X in Farsi, indicating a part of Tehran’s District 3 on a map and telling citizens to “evacuate the marked area” for safety.
Explosions have since been heard this afternoon across Tehran according to AFP journalists on the ground. Loud blasts were heard in western Tehran, an AFP journalist said.
The Islamic Republic of Iran Broadcasting (IRIB) building was struck in the Israeli attack, cutting live coverage immediately.
The blast occurred as the presenter was live on TV lambasting Israel before she was seen leaving the live broadcast, Iranian media reported.
Coverage resumed after a short period. The attack on the broadcaster echoed attacks seen in Gaza over the past 18 months, where official estimates by media organisations place more than 170 Palestinian journalists as having been killed during the war.
The video was shared by Iranian media, including the London-headquartered Iran International.
Iran’s IRIB has been targeted.
— Ghoncheh Habibiazad | غنچه (@GhonchehAzad) June 16, 2025
The reaction of the presenter when it happened:pic.twitter.com/2REDv1FWjs
#BREAKING Israeli airstrikes targeted Iran's state broadcaster in Tehran. pic.twitter.com/BHlZPGSEBg
— Iran International English (@IranIntl_En) June 16, 2025
Iran condemned Israel’s attack on a state TV building in Tehran on Monday as a “war crime”, and called on the UN Security Council to take action.
The strike on the offices of IRIB during a live broadcast was a “wicked act” and a “war crime”, said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei.
“The UNSC must act now to stop the genocidal aggressor from committing further atrocities against our people,” he added.
It comes after the IDF said it has destroyed one third of Iran’s surface-to-surface missile launchers and had achieved “aerial superiority” over Tehran.
Both sides continued to exchange fire overnight, days after Israel launched strikes on military and nuclear sites across Iran last Friday.
Iran has responded with ballistic missile strikes against Israel, while Israeli attacks have continued to target high-ranking members of the Iranian military as well as its nuclear facilities and scientists.
🔴 هشدار فوری به کلیه أفراد حاضر در ناحیه مشخص شده نقشه ضمیمه در منطقه ۳ تهران.
— ارتش دفاعی اسرائیل | IDF Farsi (@IDFFarsi) June 16, 2025
⭕️ شهروندان گرامی، بمنظور امنیت شما خواهشمندیم از ناحیه مذکور در منطقه ۳ تهران فورا خارج گردید.
⭕️ طی ساعات آینده ارتش اسرائیل در این ناحیه همچنان که طی روزهای اخیر در محدوده تهران عمل نموده است،… pic.twitter.com/kco8SbtGjw
So far, Israel’s strikes have killed at least 224 people inside Iran, according to authorities in the Islamic republic. Israel says 11 people were killed in Iranian strikes overnight, bringing the death toll to 24.
Israel claims Iran is close to developing nuclear weapons, something Iranian leaders have repeatedly denied.
In a televised statement this morning, IDF spokesman Brigadier General Effie Defrin said that more than 50 Israeli fighter jets and aircraft carried out strikes and destroyed over 120 Iranian surface-to-surface missile launchers.
“This amounts to one-third of the surface-to-surface missile launchers possessed by the Iranian regime,” he said.
The IDF said Israel now controls the skies from western Iran to Tehran.
During an emergency meeting today, Iran urged the UN’s International Atomic Energy Agency to condemn Israeli attacks on nuclear sites in the Islamic republic.
“We expect the (IAEA) Board of Governors and the Director General to take a firm position in condemning this act (attacking nuclear facilities) and holding the regime (Israel) accountable,” said foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baqaei during a weekly press briefing.
Iran also urged Britain, France and Germany to pressure Israel to stop its attacks and hold the country “accountable”.
Last night’s Iranian missile attack followed Israeli strikes in central Iran, which Israel’s army said targeted surface-to-surface missile sites.
Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, in a statement quoted by the official IRNA news agency, said they had “successfully” struck Israel and vowed “effective, targeted and more devastating operations” to come.
Israel’s Magen David Adom emergency service said five people had been killed and 92 wounded following the latest Iranian attack, raising a previous toll of four deaths.
AFP images showed gutted residential buildings in Tel Aviv and fires smouldering outside the coastal city of Haifa, after Israel’s army warned people to take cover from incoming Iranian missiles.
The US ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee said an embassy building in Tel Aviv sustained minor damage from a nearby Iranian missile strike, reporting no injuries to US personnel.
In Jerusalem, an AFP journalist heard loud explosions, while footage showed Israeli air defences lighting up the night sky.
After decades of enmity and a prolonged shadow war fought through proxies and covert operations, Israel’s attack on Friday has kicked off the most intense fighting yet and triggered fears of a lengthy conflict that could engulf the Middle East.
Israel says its attacks have hit military and nuclear facilities, and killed many top commanders and atomic scientists – but a senior US official said Sunday that US President Donald Trump told Israel to back down from a plan to kill supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
Trump urged Iran to “make a deal” regarding its ability to enrich uranium, even as Israeli strikes rained down on the capital Tehran.
Trump told reporters yesterday that “sometimes they have to fight it out” first.
Residential areas in both countries have suffered deadly strikes since the hostilities broke out on Friday, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu slamming Iran yesterday for allegedly targeting civilians.
“Iran will pay a very heavy price for the premeditated murder of civilians, women and children,” he said while visiting a residential building struck by a missile in the coastal city of Bat Yam, near Tel Aviv.
According to Netanyahu’s office, a total of 24 people have been killed in Israel since the first Iranian shots fired in response to the Israeli strikes on Friday.
This includes 11 deaths recorded since midnight, including four in Petakh Tikva near Tel Aviv, three in Haifa and one in the Bnei Brak suburb of Tel Aviv.
It also includes two bodies retrieved following a previous strike on Bat Yam and one more killed in an unspecified location.
Iran’s health ministry reported at least 224 people killed and more than 1,200 wounded in Israeli attacks since Friday.
Iranian state television reported at least five people were killed yesterday by an Israeli strike that hit a residential building in central Tehran.
The casualties were from strikes on four sites in central Israel, the MDA said in a statement, adding those killed included “two women and two men around the age of 70, as well as one additional fatality”.
Colonel Reza Sayyad, a spokesman for Iran’s armed forces, threatened a “devastating response” to Israel’s attacks.
“Leave the occupied territories (Israel) because they will certainly no longer be habitable in the future,” he warned in a televised address, adding shelters will “not guarantee security”.
Addressing parliament today, Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian urged citizens to “stand strong against this genocidal criminal aggression with unity and coherence”.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz later warned that Tehran’s residents would “pay the price” for Iranian attacks on Israeli civilians.
Despite reports of people fleeing the Iranian capital, some were determined to stay.
“It is natural that war has its own stress, but I will not leave my city,” Shokouh Razzazi, 31, told AFP.
Need more clarity and context on what is happening in the Middle East? Check out our FactCheck Knowledge Bank for essential reads and guides to finding good information online.
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